UTA Flight 141

UTA Flight 141 was a charter flight operated by Union des Transports Aériens de Guinée.

On Christmas day, 25 December, 2003, the flight crashed in the Bight of Benin, killing 151 of the 163 occupants, most of them Lebanese.

Flight 141 was flown on 3X-GDM, a Boeing 727-223, on the day of the crash. The airliner had begun its flight in Guinea, stopped in Sierra Leone and in Benin, on its way to Lebanon. Many of the passengers were workers who were flying back home to Lebanon to enjoy the holidays with their families.

Initial reports pointed out to the possibility the airplane might have touched a building with one of its wings upon take-off, causing it to lose balance and go into an uncontrollable free-fall that ended with the crash as a consequence.

Some newspaper reports have led many to suspect that the airplane used for this flight was, in fact, an airplane that had dissapeared about one year before, after being flown to Africa by an American pilot, Ben Charles Padilla.